


Exits

by KaytiKazoo



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Leo Fitz, Canon Compliant, F/M, Leo Fitz Feels, Leo Fitz-centric, Unrequited Leo Fitz/Lance Hunter, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28994316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: 5 Times Fitz is left behind + 1 Time someone comes back for him
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Exits

_ When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy. _

-Ep. 66: The Stolen Century - Chapter Seven | The Adventure Zone 

**i. Alistair**

When his dad left, he was ten. He loved his father, but he wasn’t sure he liked him. He certainly loved him more than his father loved him back, that he was sure, and he was certain that his father didn’t like him one bit either. One day, Leo came home from school to see his father walking out the door, suitcase in hand. He didn’t look at Leo as he passed, and Leo was glad. He didn’t want to see the off-center stare his father gave him when he’d drunk too much. His arm ached still where his father had wrenched him closer the week before. There were no bruises. There were never any bruises. But Leo knew, and his father knew, and his mother knew, and they all pretended it didn’t happen. 

He was ten, and his father walked past him like he didn’t exist. 

He felt like he didn’t exist. 

He wished he didn’t some days. It would make it easier than trying to understand why his mum loved him so much, and his dad hated him in equal measure. It would make it easier on everyone if he didn’t exist, because then his mum and his dad wouldn’t fight, they wouldn’t have anything to fight over. They only seemed to argue about Leo in the first place. 

His dad didn’t like him, thought he wasn’t smart, wasn’t good, wasn’t worth anything. He told him so, especially after he’d drank too much. 

Leo thought he remembered a time when his father would swing him around in his arms and promise him the world, but it didn’t fit with the father he knew then, harsh and unforgiving. He couldn’t make it fit, so he figured it must have been a dream, or he’d replaced his mum with his dad in order to make himself love him more. 

His mum would tell him that it was okay to make mistakes, it was okay if he had an accident and broke something, and it was okay if he messed up when he was trying something new. His dad didn’t agree. He would yell at him, tell him he was wrong, that he was stupid, that he’d never amount to anything. 

For a while, Leo thought it was true. His dad was a grown-up, and he’d been taught to respect his elders since he was young. His dad had to know what he was talking about. If his dad said he was stupid and worthless, then that’s exactly what he was. 

He decided he could change that, though. Just because that’s how he was then, that didn’t mean he couldn’t work hard, and study hard, and become something worthy of his father’s approval. If his dad never saw it, then at least he had bettered himself. 

It hadn’t stopped his father from leaving. 

One day, Leo came home from school. It had been a long day, of older kids shoving him around and teachers ignoring it, and Leo wanted to get home so he could take his shoes off and listen to his mum sing in the kitchen while she cooked. He opened the front gate, hiking his backpack higher up, and as he crossed the front walk, the front door. Sometimes his mum would open the door for him if she saw him coming, ready to greet him at the front door. But this wasn’t his mum. His dad, dressed in his suit, tie askew, stepped out of the door, carrying his suitcase. He walked down the steps and across the yard without even glancing at Leo. Leo stalled in his tracks, waiting for the insult, waiting for the pain, waiting for something. 

Nothing came. 

Instead, his father left the yard, leaving the front gate hanging open – his mum hated when his father did that – and popped open the trunk to the car to stow his bag. Without looking at his son, Alistair Fitz climbed into his car parked out front and Leo watched as he started the car and drove away. Leo walked to the end of the walk, and shut the front gate so his mum wouldn’t be mad, and watched, hoping that even if his dad didn’t come back, that he’d at least look back. 

He didn’t. 

Alistair Fitz took a right at the street corner, and left his son behind. 

**ii. Ward**

He probably should have expected it. Life on the Bus, with the team, was good, even when it was crazy, and dangerous, and things like Jemma jumping out of a plane happened. It was good, and Fitz felt like they were a family, wound around his heart, protecting him as he protected them. But of course, when he started feeling safe and secure, that was when the proverbial rug was ripped out from underneath them. 

He stared at Ward through the pod’s window, begging and pleading for him to reconsider. He hadn’t wanted to believe Skye when she’d said that Ward was Hydra. It didn’t seem right. They’d been friends, teammates,  _ family _ . Ward was stoic and hard to get to know, but he wasn’t Hydra. He had saved Fitz’s life, and Jemma’s, and all of them, actually. If Ward were Hydra, then Fitz didn’t know what else he couldn’t trust. May had been spying on Coulson, and Skye had betrayed them for her boyfriend, and Ward was  _ Hydra _ . He couldn’t imagine what else could go wrong. 

“Ward,” he said, staring at his friend. No, not his friend. “Please. I need to understand.” 

He could hear Jemma at his side telling him to accept it, that Ward didn’t care about them, but how could that be true? 

“No, I don’t believe that. We’re friends, aren’t we? We’ve been friends. We’ve had laughs together.” 

Ward remained unblinking. 

“I know that you’re a good person, Ward, and you can choose right now to be good. It’s a choice.” 

“I’ve got my orders,” Ward replied, stony faced. “Open up the door.” 

“No,” he said. 

“Okay, have it your way.” 

He turned away from them, and Fitz felt his heartbeat stall for a moment. 

“Wait. What are you doing?” 

“Fitz,” Jemma breathed. 

“Okay, wait. Wait. Wait. Ward. Okay, just look at me,” Fitz pleaded, his words falling on deaf ears. “Ward, just turn around!” 

He didn’t. 

“Ward, look at me! I know you care about us!” Fitz tried, one last desperate attempt to appeal to Ward. They were friends. They were  _ friends _ . They’d been at each other’s sides, looking out for one another, saving one another. He’d saved Jemma when Fitz couldn’t. 

“You’re right, I do,” Ward said, quiet. “It’s a weakness.” 

And he pressed the button. The pod hissed as it released from the Bus, and Fitz screamed Ward’s name as it began to free fall. He became smaller and smaller, and Fitz couldn’t breathe. 

Ward would come back into their lives later, a shadow in their lives, but that was the last time Fitz could believe that they were friends; the man that Fitz had thought Ward was before everything was completely gone. 

**iii. Jemma**

Things were different. Fitz was different. He couldn’t form words, or thoughts. His hands shook, and his body trembled, and he felt like a stranger in his own head. Someone else had control over his limbs. Or no one did. When he could think, it was as if his sentences were run through a shredder. Words were gone, lingering behind a fog cloud that he couldn’t reach through. He stood on one side, and the rest of the world was on the other. 

Nine days had apparently passed while he was comatose. He hadn’t even noticed. He was in the pod, the water exploding in, filling his lungs, and then, he was in a hospital bed. When he woke up, Jemma was sitting quietly at his side, a tablet in front of her as she worked. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and she was wearing one of his old SHIELD academy sweatshirts with a pair of comfortable jeans. She didn’t notice him at first, and he let her continue working.

He couldn’t find the words to speak to her. 

He opened his mouth, thankfully he hadn’t been intubated, but he couldn’t speak.

_ Jemma _ , he tried to say. 

_ Where am I? _ he tried to ask.

_ You’re okay _ , he tried to say.

_ How did we get there? _ he tried to ask.

Instead of speaking, he made a strangled squeaking noise, and her eyes snapped up from her tablet to him. 

“Fitz,” she breathed out. “Oh, Fitz! You’re finally awake!”

He tried again, but even her name wouldn’t come out.

“Je - Je - wh -” 

He let out a hard breath, frustration boiling inside his chest. It would become a familiar companion, his only friend when it felt like the rest of the world was against him. As if that wasn't enough, his hands wouldn't cooperate, and he was rendered completely useless to the team. His one contribution had always been his intelligence and his skills at building tech. Without it, he was obsolete. 

Jemma tried to help, tried to help him finish his sentences, tried to pick up where his mind dropped off, but every time she tried to help, it felt like a knife in his heart. Once upon a time, they had been equals, but he had been cut off at the knees, and she was acting like nothing was wrong.

He wanted to scream, and kick, and thrash at the world that was cruel enough to let him live but leave him like  _ this _ .

"I could help," Jemma said in the lab as he tried to sort out how to make the cloaking on the Bus work. 

He closed his eyes and blew out a breath.

"I'm trying to, to - I'm trying, I'm trying to," he said, and he groaned. 

"You're trying to work out the cloaking," Jemma said. 

It was true, but not what he was trying to say, not that he knew what he was trying to say. 

The day Jemma left, they argued about her trying to help, and how he didn't want her help. Well, he tried to argue, but the words stumbled over his tongue and fell out of order if they fell out at all.

"I'm going to visit my parents for a little bit, I think," she said after when she came back to the lab. He looked up from his trembling hands, the stylus in his hand wobbling visibly. "We need some time away from each other."

"Jemma," he said.

He could at least say her name now.

"It won't be forever, I just don't think I'm doing you any good. So, I'm going to go visit my parents. It's been far too long since I went home. You might do the same. Abi would certainly love to see you."

He scoffed at that, unable to imagine bringing himself home and presenting his absolute disaster self to his mum. 

Jemma smiled sadly at him, and took a step back. He watched her go, unable to stop her, unable to pull the words out of the ether and sort them just right in order to keep her with him. He didn't want her to go. He'd lost so much already that he didn't want her to leave him behind, but he couldn't look away as she went. 

The lab door shut behind her, and he felt like he was drowning all over again.

**iv. Jemma**

He certainly should have expected it, should have seen it coming, because he'd always thought they were cursed. Jemma gave him hope, though.

"There’s nothing to talk about,” he said.

“Maybe there is,” she replied, and that opened up a world of opportunities that he had been pointedly not thinking about for months since he’d told her he loved her and she hadn’t felt the same. He’d tucked his feelings away and focused on being her friend. He wasn’t going to force anything on her, and he’d only said something because he’d thought it was his last chance, and he didn’t want to die knowing he hadn’t been honest with her. 

That night in the containment room where they kept the Monolith, he'd seen a glimmer of hope for the future, a dinner that might unfold into more. He wasn’t good at this. He never had been. He was awkward and unpracticed. There really hadn’t been anyone before Jemma that he would consider like that. He’d gone on dates, but those were a miracle and short-lived. He never went on more than one or two dates with someone before they found him off-standish or unpalatable or just plain weird. At least he knew with Jemma that that was less of a risk. They’d been friends since they were kids. She’d seen him at his most awkward, sixteen and almost frighteningly incapable of holding a conversation. He’d buried himself in his schoolwork, in his tech, in his creations, that he forgot the world outside existed, and when he was forced to surface, it was often floundering in front of people. 

They had grown together, though, and she knew exactly who he was, and he knew her. 

That didn’t make asking her out any easier, though. She’d taken the next step for him, insinuating that she wasn’t opposed to thinking about him romantically the same way he was thinking about her. So, he knew that she wouldn’t outright turn him down, but he still couldn’t form the words, not that he ever could form the proper words at the right time since he woke up from the coma. 

“No, I don’t,” she said, walking ahead of him. “You keep rambling on and on, and I still don’t know what you mean.”

“Dinner,” he said.

“Fast approaching, yes, and we’ll eat it, I’m sure.”

That wasn’t what he meant, and he wanted to express that. 

“Yeah, no, no, no. But, uh, me and you,” he said, and she glanced up at him. “Maybe we could eat somewhere else, you know, somewhere nice.”

“Oh.”

She didn’t say no, which was good. There was a little 

“Good,” he said. “Okay.”

That meant he had to figure out where he was going to take her, and that meant a little research. 

“Uh, well, y - uh, you should come find me when you’re finished here, and - and I’ll - I’ll start working on options to run by you, for that.”

She let out a small, sweet laugh which warmed him to hear. He’d always loved Jemma’s joy, even before he’d realized that the feelings in his chest were not just platonic. It was infectious, and he couldn’t say no when she smiled like that. That smile had led him on the Bus in the first place, the way she’d blinked her big brown eyes at him, pleading, and he couldn’t finish his argument. He’d follow her around the world, and into space if they ever came to that. He’d go wherever Jemma Simmons asked simply because she asked.

He left her in that room, and went to his bunk. He was smiling, which felt foreign to him after everything they’d been through together, but it was actually kind of nice. He sat on his bed with his tablet, and looked through reviews and guides of the area. All of this time and he still didn’t quite know what lay outside of the Playground. He almost messaged Hunter for a suggestion, but he wasn’t sure he could handle Hunter’s willingness to help him with Jemma. That might hurt him in a way that would ruin this, but Hunter would absolutely have some kind of opinion on the food. 

When he had called and set up the reservation, he let out a breath. 

They were going to do this.

They were going on  _ a date _ .

A date.

An actual date, where they were going to go to a restaurant, and they were going to talk about, well, he wasn’t sure, but they were going to do it, and maybe he’d kiss her. He’d thought about it before, but it was vague and amorphous. He certainly wanted to kiss her, that was true. He lost his train of thought picturing Jemma’s soft lips against his, the gentle way she would breath into his space, whisper his name in that sweet way she did. 

But she never came to find him. He waited, and waited, and waited.

Jemma never showed up. 

He’d thought she’d changed her mind, and that was devastating to him. Jemma wasn’t someone who would do that, not to him, not to anyone. She was sweet and she was good and she wouldn’t do that to him. 

But then they never located Jemma, and he ached with her absence. Every day, he looked for her, and the leads grew smaller and smaller, but he held his hope tight. He had nothing if he didn’t have hope.

**v. Bobbi and Hunter**

Hunter was something else, something that Fitz had never thought to prepare himself for. He'd always had a feeling he wasn't straight, his eyes lingering on some boys in school and some male agents at the Academy and SciTech afterwards. He'd never considered it particularly relevant because he didn't want to get to know any of them, and if he didn't know them, he didn't want to date them. Sure, a few slipped into midnight fantasies, but nothing too serious that he felt it pertinent to explore. 

But of course, then came Lance Hunter. 

Hunter was loud, and brash, and had beautiful brown eyes that looked hazel in some lights and like whiskey in sunshine in others, and he pushed Fitz out of his comfort zone while also somehow simultaneously keeping him safe. He invited himself into Fitz’s life, and parked himself there, content to stay apparently. 

It wouldn’t have been a problem if Hunter also didn't have a tendency to touch Fitz freely, without thought. He'd run his fingers over Fitz's hands when they trembled, and he'd leave a hand on Fitz's shoulder when he leaned over him at game night or at the lab. 

Jemma was gone, and he felt drawn to him like he was a moth, and Hunter was a monstrous bonfire. There was something undeniable about Hunter's charm, and Fitz wanted to find out what that was. 

With Hunter, though, came Bobbi. Bobbi who was smart, and deadly, and gorgeous, and who Hunter was utterly in love with. He thought watching the guy he was intensely interested in be in love with someone else might squash his interest, but instead it ached more in his chest. Fitz had never felt like this for someone, and it bored through him like heartburn. Even worse, though, was the fact that he didn’t hate Bobbi for it. He understood what Hunter saw in her; it was the same thing he saw in Jemma, and if he could still carry that torch for Jemma, then he couldn’t hate Bobbi for Hunter’s affection. He enjoyed Bobbi’s presence, they got along, she made him laugh, and when Jemma was on Maveth for months, Bobbi was a guiding comfort for him. 

“Oh, is that the other man? Well, I’m just going to say what we’re all thinking; he has a hog face,” Hunter said, standing back away from Fitz next to Bobbi.

“He does have a hog face,” Fitz said softly, glad to have Hunter on his side, even if Will Daniels was actually extremely attractive, and Jemma looked extremely happy in his arms. Fitz was glad to have them both, Hunter and Bobbi standing behind him like a wall of confidence he didn’t feel himself. 

Unfortunately, it couldn’t last forever. Nothing ever lasted, not for Fitz. 

He’d said to Jemma that they were cursed, but he wasn’t sure that it wasn’t actually  _ him  _ that was cursed. 

He didn't even remember his last words to Hunter before the mission, before Hunter and Bobbi were caught and hauled away to a prison in the depths of Russia. He didn't think he'd need to notice them. That was the thing about some exits in his life, they blindsided him. They came out of the void, and suckerpunched him right when he thought that he could settle into his life. He’d thought that Coulson would help them escape and they'd be on the Zephyr again, and he wouldn't have to worry. He wouldn’t have to say goodbye, so he probably had pat Hunter on the arm, and let him go without saying a thing. He’d become complacent instead of vigilant. Every day something could happen, someone could step into their lives as easily as someone could step away, but he’d let himself relax for a moment. 

Part of that came from Hunter himself, he was pretty sure. He’d started to let himself enjoy Hunter's presence, and the warmth he lit in Fitz's chest. It was different from his feelings for Jemma, but not bad in any way. Hunter made him laugh, and was there beside him to support him through everything from the very start. He’d never treated Fitz like a favorite toy that had been broken and patched back together poorly, trying valiantly to still work the way he had before. He’d never known the bright and clever Fitz, so Hunter liked him for him. He was there while Jemma was gone, and he was there when Jemma returned, nudging him towards her. He was there at the team’s side, committing himself to SHIELD and the team when they desperately needed him. The idea that all of that would be gone, that he'd never see Hunter again, it stung like he'd been slapped. 

"They're going to be at a bar," Coulson said. "We can't go up to them, they have to remain separate from SHIELD, but we can say goodbye the old fashioned way."

"How's that, then?" Jemma asked. 

"It's called a Spy's Goodbye," May answered, so they went to the bar.

Hunter looked amazing, despite everything that they'd been through, and Fitz sank into his booth alone. They had a plan, but Fitz almost said fuck the plan and marched up to Hunter. He stuck to the plan, he bought them a drink, and himself one too, and when they looked around, they raised their glasses, and then, they left Bobbi and Hunter.

Just like that, Hunter was gone from his life, another shadow on his heart, marked forever.

**+1 Jemma**

It wasn’t the last time he saw Hunter, though. Hunter came and rescued him from prison, and helped him get into the cryo chamber so he could get back to Jemma and the team without question. No matter what, Hunter had always had his back, and he would stand by that for as long as he lived. He lay in the chamber, and Hunter told him he loved him, and maybe that would have hurt him once, but he smiled and replied, “I know.”

He closed his eyes, and let himself relax, the cryo chamber putting him to sleep. When he woke up, it was not where he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be in the future, meeting up with his team and rescuing them. But instead, he was in the depths of space with no way home. It was just him and Enoch in the frigid cold expanse of the universe, trying to find some way to get back to Earth, or back on track with their plan. But they were met with trial after trial, and Fitz was getting frustrated. Day after day ticked by, turning into month after month, and then, two years had gone by.

He hadn’t seen Jemma in two years. 

Two years. He’d never been apart from here for years since they’d met. The longest had been when she’d been taken to Maveth. 

“I’m going to make it back to you,” he said to her before going to sleep every night, not that he had a concept of day versus night anymore. He worked, and then when the work was done, he’d crash in his bunk. He pretended he wasn’t human, and that his name wasn’t Leopold Fitz, and he had no idea what Earth was. He learned new languages, and new cultures, and tried desperately to hold onto who he was underneath the facade. It felt like it slipped from his grasp sometimes, the reality of his past, the hold on his identity. 

If he wasn’t Leo Fitz, who was he?

If he wasn’t human, what was he?

If he wasn’t from Earth, where was he from?

The questions circled around, and around in his head when he worked, some of the work on the ship mindlessly dully. He could do it in his sleep, and sometimes, he wished he could, sleep work so he could catch some decent amount of rest without risking his neck. He did not want to be vented into the vacuum of space, so he kept himself a secret. Enoch helped, a companion through it all, but he wasn’t human. He was incredibly old, had seen so much, had lived long past any human’s even wildest dreams. His sense of self didn’t come from his past, but from his skills and his missions. He knew what he was doing, and what his goals were, and he was going to keep doing them until the job was done. 

Fitz didn’t have that hold on his own sense of self, though, and spiralled without his friends, his family, his team, without Jemma. 

“I’m going to make it back to you,” he said, imagining her there with him, holding his hand, holding him down, holding him steady. She’d know what to do, she’d have an idea of how to get home, how to get him back to her. That was the problem, though. In order to get back to her, he needed her, and he didn’t have her so he couldn’t get back to her. 

In the end, though, because Jemma Simmons was magic and always had been, she found him. She came for him. She sailed across the stars, searching, following the clues they’d left behind, poking around until she found him there. He’d never seen anything more beautiful than her, and he stared at her for a moment, unable to believe what he was seeing. She was there, she was real, she’d come for him. 

If they were cursed, if there was such a thing, they were far stronger than anything the cosmos wanted to throw at them. Jemma Simmons had gotten on board a spaceship, she had flown through the stars, she had combed through the galaxy, visited unfamiliar planets, meeting all kinds of new and unusual species of intelligent beings, and she had tracked him down. She had found him here of all places; in the entire universe of possibility, she had found him. 

If they were cursed, it didn’t matter, they were always going to keep finding their way back to each other, holding onto each other. They were going to break it every time, because they had crossed the universe for each other, constantly revolving and moving around each other. They were stronger than anything on heaven and earth.

If they were cursed, god help the thing that cursed them. 


End file.
